Donald Gunn asked Jean-Marie Dru to contribute an essay to the latest edition of the Gunn Report, the only independent report on creativity for the advertising world. Enjoy Jean-Marie Dru’s thoughts on mad-blog.com:
The economic crisis on the one hand, the digital revolution on the other…
Our profession has never been so shaken. These two circumstances create multiple effects. And we are all wondering what tomorrow will look like.
Concerning digital, communications groups are developing varied, often opposing strategies. Some, through a series of acquisitions, attempt to create a technological barrier between them and their competitors. Others, like our Agency, are putting digital at the very center of their conventional activities. Neither strategy is, by definition, the winner. There are different ways to succeed. What makes a strategy effective is the quality of its implementation, and the commitment to it.
To ensure that everything starts with digital, the 180 agency in Amsterdam totally reinvented itself. The result of their actions was even more radical than they had imagined, and the price they paid was heavy, with no fewer than 55 out of their total 120 staff changing. This is a dramatic illustration of the size of the task. The path ahead is narrow, and it is difficult.
Too often, we are more comfortable talking about digital ideas than making the inherent changes that are necessary to provoke the right solutions in the digital world. As Colleen DeCourcy, our Chief Digital Officer, said to me recently: “Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die.”
In an industry faced with such challenges, the relevance of award shows, and even The Gunn Report itself, comes under scrutiny. It is a recurring subject. I remember back in the ‘70s, industry colleagues who announced the imminent demise of the Cannes Festival. We know what it has since become. Its turnover increased tenfold, because today more than ever, the celebration of creativity is essential despite of the difficult environment in which we are operating, or rather, because of it. And it’s why, although they avoided awards shows for over 50 years, the world’s leading advertisers now participate actively in them, and celebrate when their own campaigns are recognized.
In a speech I gave in Cannes last year, I underlined that “Big can be beautiful too.” In 2007, both Procter & Gamble and Unilever were awarded a Grand Prix at this festival. Today, a lot of great work comes from large companies. They have internalized the fact that audiences are not captive anymore. If you don’t entertain and engage people, they will simply ignore you. “Safe advertising“ is becoming invisible. At last.
There’s no getting away from that fact that, today, creativity is no longer optional. It is vital to every product category and to every communications discipline.
In fact, there are two factors that are contributing to put creativity in the center. On the one hand, the imminent demise of repetitive advertising, and on the other, the understanding that each and every touchpoint between a brand and its audiences must be creative.
Advertising is part of how brands behave, but brands are judged on everything they do, not just how they appear in advertising.
We need to embrace all the ways to tell a brand’s story: its packaging, its retail presence, the content of its website, its PR programs, the products themselves. And to ensure that everything is creative. This is why, even when an agency is not directly in charge of one of these elements, it must nevertheless feel a sense of responsibility. There can be no room for compromise or mediocrity if you have the ambition to be a brand leader. Advertising agencies will rediscover their original reason for being; they will again become true generalists.
But contrary to the past, they will only achieve this if they learn how to change rhythm. The problem is no longer just to ensure the coherence between the different elements of a brand’s communication, which some continue to refer to as 360°. But rather, to feed a constant conversation with our audiences, 365 days a year. From 360 to 365…it is the very rhythm of communications that digital has shaken up. Agencies need to move from a quarterly to a daily cadence.
We have to organize ourselves to deliver constant communications. A fleet of small initiatives coming together to create an ongoing communication program, generating more frequent conversation points. We need to own these conversations, not just the creative work.
Acclaimed filmmaker Spike Jonze premieres his latest work – I’m Here, a 30-minute short film – at the Sundance Film Festival this month as part of the first-ever Opening Night’s Shorts Program at the festival. The film is a collaboration with ABSOLUT VODKA, and the partnership acknowledges the brand’s position as a pioneering and culture-shaping brand. ABSOLUT has always stood out in the marketplace as a groundbreaking company that has been supporting artists for decades. Previous collaborations include those with Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and Helmut Newton. I’m Here honors the brand’s history while embarking on a new and innovative alliance with one of today’s most original filmmakers. The film came about when TBWA\Chiat\Day New York and ABSOLUT reached out to Jonze to make a film, and gave him creative control to create the film he wanted.
Read more about this groundbreaking project from TBWA’s New York office, and see the :60 trailer after the jump. Read more…
John Hunt is an award-winning playwright, author, and Worldwide Creative Director of TBWA. He presented his new book “The Art of the Idea” in a presidents lecture at the Berlin School of Creative Leadership. Prior the festive event he had a personal conversation with Michael Conrad. Join the insightful conversation.
(Part One)
(Part Two)
Hunt was born in Zambia and educated in England and South Africa, he was the Creative Founding Partner of TBWA Hunt Lascaris. TBWA Hunt Lascaris has now grown to be South Africa’s premier advertising agency – named Agency of the Year six times in the last seven years. In 1993 John was intimately involved in Nelson Mandela’s first ANC election campaign. Three years later, he joined the South African Advertising Hall of Fame – the first working creative to be so honored, and in 1997 he received the Financial Mail’s Long Term Achievement Award.
TBWA has been named by Adweek magazine as the “Global Advertising Agency Network of the Year” in both 2007 and again for 2009. Led by CEO (and Berlin School Board of Governors member) Jean-Marie Dru, the full-service agency has more than 250 offices in 77 countries. Some of its major clients include Adidas, Absolut Vodka, Apple, Henkel, Mars, Nissan, and Sony PlayStation.
Guillaume Pannaud, who heads TBWA Paris, has named Philippe Simonet vice-president of the agency, alongside Anne Vincent. Here he uses the occasion to explain his vision of the integration of the Web at the heart of communications agencies.
Le Figaro: Why did you make a digital specialist your right hand man?
Guillaume Pannaud: It springs from the absolute and essential metamorphosis of our industry. Philippe Simonet is one of the pioneers of the digital sector, yet this is the first time in France that a talent from that area has joined the management team of a large agency. It’s an upheaval – there will be a ‘before’ and an ‘after’. Fifty years ago, agencies were trying to integrate television into their offering; today it’s the turn of the Web. This process must be carried out at every level of the agency – and not via external growth or complex agreements. In that respect, two different visions are confronting one another in the market.
You’re subscribing to a logic that has already been adopted by TBWA at a global level.
GP: Branches of the group worldwide have recruited digital specialists and that has borne fruit, as TBWA now handles the interactive accounts of Pepsi, Visa and Adidas internationally.
Why not create a separate digital entity, like TBWA Interactive was before?
GP: That agency was founded within our marketing services arm, Tequila, two years ago. But today interactive must be anchored in a permanent and strategic manner at the heart of agencies. As for production tools, they can be externalized or outsourced – as is the case with regular audiovisual production – or indeed integrated. These are tactical or secondary choices that will be driven by the evolution the market. But TBWA certainly doesn’t want to get involved in a digital agency acquisition spree. That results in a juxtaposition of businesses and, inevitably, in the departure of talented people. On the contrary, TBWA wants to integrate them.
How do you explain the scarcity of digital talents in such a vibrant sector?
GP: You can count on the fingers of one hand the pure digital agencies whose breadth and savoir-faire are compatible with our mission as brand advisers. Their managers are sought-after by the entire market, because there’s such a huge need for them. And the talent battle has only just begun, because it’s not the production tools that count – they’re available to everyone – but the genuine advertising talents who are capable of responding to the new challenges of communication.
Read the full interview in Le Figaro or click HERE.
Every year ABSOLUT creates a limited edition winter bottle skin. This year, ABSOLUT and TBWA\Chiat\Day New York decided to do a “rock edition,” by creating a leather-studded skin. They then contacted infamous rock and roll photographer Danny Clinch. They asked him to document the band Wolfmother for two days in LA as they recorded their new album, performed at the Natural History Museum, and partied on the penthouse roof of the notorious Roosevelt Hotel. Over the course of the two days, Danny captured hundreds of photos and film, which were then turned into outdoor, print and online ads.
Many of the photos became part of a traveling photo exhibit, which took place in Stockholm and Belgium. Then, TBWA\Berlin took the idea and created an outdoor photo exhibit, featuring the images in billboard size on the walls of buildings throughout Munich, Cologne and Hamburg. They even provided a site map and audio tour. A perfect example of the art of Media Arts.
Jean-Marie Dru, the inventor of Disruption and Chairman TBWA\ Worldwide delivered today a speech at the TBWA Creative Academy at this years Golden Drum Festival in Portoroz (Slovenia). Here are some sound-bites for all of you who couldn’t attend:
“Disruption has been invented in the mid 80’s. So you could ask: is it still relevant in the current decade? And is it still effective in the middle of the digital revolution?”
“The answer is without any doubt YES, but I will make two observations:
In the last 15 years, the focus of the methodology has moved progressively from convention to vision. Adidas believes that impossible is not a fact, but an opinion. Visa encourages to go and do things, in spite of the tough environment we are in. Nissan explains that “everything they touch, they try to shift”. Pepsi revitalizes the Pepsi generation theme by reminding us that “every generation refreshes the world”. And Absolut makes us discover what would be a perfect world, the world of Absolut.”
“As a summary of this first point concerning Vision, I would say that in this turbulent world, the role of Disruption has pivoted. Today it is more about creating a rallying point for a company or brand, a focal point, and this despite the increasing tribulations of the market – or rather, because of them. We need to create a reference point that we can constantly look back to, whatever unexpected directions the market may have taken us in.”
“The second observation I would like to make about the status of Disruption today is coming from the fact that we are living in a totally new world. In the digital world, we don’t talk to targets anymore, not even to consumers, we talk to audiences. Audiences who are not captive anymore. Audiences who judge brands on everything they do, on all the initiatives they take. Today more than ever, “actions speak louder than words”.
So the way a brand engages the audience in this new media world is key for its success. Therefore Disruption which is about brand belief must be augmented with another discipline, a discipline about brand behaviour. We call it Media Arts.
It starts by repatriating part of the media thinking into the agency. We can no longer think of media as just a means for brands to talk at consumers, but rather as all the places, spaces and experiences where people live their lives. It is time for advertising agencies not to be media neutral anymore, but to be media passionate.
It’s also time to understand that each and every touch point between audiences and a brand must be creative. And this whatever these touch points are: the packaging, the retail presence, the content of the website, the PR programs, the CRM initiatives etc. And we called this Media Arts because we believe each point of contact must tell the brand’s story, gracefully, artfully.
The problem is no longer just to ensure the coherence between the different elements of a brand’s communication, which some continue to refer to as 360°. But rather, to feed a constant conversation with our audiences, 365 days a year. From 360° to 365…”
“Brands are judged in the way they act and in all the initiatives they take. That’s why Media Arts is so important.”
“In a nutshell, Disruption is about brand belief, whereas Media Arts is about brand behaviour.”
Jean-Marie Dru (Chairman TBWA Worldwide) will join the TBWA Creative Academy at this year’s Golden Drum Festival. In his speech “DISRUPTION in a disrupted world” he will reflect on one of the toughest periods in the history of the advertising business and offer his thoughts on creativity and how brands should behave in the future.
Bestselling author and the inventor of Disruption – a way of unlocking the hidden potential of brands – Dru is a passionate believer in the power of big ideas. In his speech he will explain why brands now have an even greater need for smart and innovative thinking. And he’ll offer insights into how that thinking has helped mega-brands such as Absolut, Apple, Pedigree and Adidas.
With Disruption, Jean-Marie Dru gave TBWA an idea that has consistently set the agency apart from its competition. Both Advertising Age and Adweek magazines named TBWA Global Agency of the Year in 2008. And Fast Company magazine placed TBWA 24th on its 2009 list of The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies.
Disruption is both a mind-set and a methodology that TBWA uses every day to create the ideas that enable its clients to present brands in entirely new ways. It drives success by collaboratively, collectively and systematically interrogating and challenging the conventional thinking.
October 7, 2008; 10:30 a.m., Kodak Hall (Grand Hotel Bernardin, Portoroz SLO)
With the first significant campaign in Germany since the company’s take over by Pernod Ricard, ABSOLUT VODKA is re-focussing on it‘s creative DNA. The world‘s largest photo exhibition in Cologne, Hamburg and Munich gives the audience of the brand a unique interpretation of the creative collaboration between rock photographer Danny Clinch and the rock band Wolfmother: IN AN ABSOLUT WORLD YOU‘RE WITH THE BAND.
Lichtstrasse in Cologne
In an interview with German trade-magazine HORIZONT Christian Seel, Marketing Manager for ABSOLUT in Germany, commented on the decision to rethink the former media mix, especially the departure from TV: „All other premium vodka brands are on TV, but we wanted to differentiate ourselves through creative thinking and behavior.“ He continues, „We are not convinced to be able to connect with our audience on TV. We want to be more efficient.“
The exhibition won’t happen in print ads or on traditional OOH poster-sites. Rather, the stars of the show are multiple 2,500 square-feet XXL posters on display throughout the selected cities, in the open space and not in a closed of museum. Flyers distributed in bars and restaurants point the audience to the exhibition, and iPhone users can listen to a mobile audio guide directly on their phone, including original comments by the photographers. All others can download an audio guide direct from the ABSOLUT website, to which an interactive banner campaign directs additional fans.
If you cannot travel to Cologne, Hamburg or Munich, make sure you check it out on the web.
The economic crisis on the one hand, the digital revolution on the other…
Every year ABSOLUT creates a limited edition winter bottle skin. This year, ABSOLUT and TBWA\Chiat\Day New York decided to do a “rock edition,” by creating a leather-studded skin. They then contacted infamous rock and roll photographer Danny Clinch. They asked him to document the band Wolfmother for two days in LA as they recorded their new album, performed at the Natural History Museum, and partied on the penthouse roof of the notorious Roosevelt Hotel. Over the course of the two days, Danny captured hundreds of photos and film, which were then turned into outdoor, print and online ads.
Jean-Marie Dru, the inventor of Disruption and Chairman TBWA\ Worldwide delivered today a speech at the TBWA Creative Academy at this years Golden Drum Festival in Portoroz (Slovenia). Here are some sound-bites for all of you who couldn’t attend:
Jean-Marie Dru (Chairman TBWA Worldwide) will join the TBWA Creative Academy at this year’s Golden Drum Festival. In his speech “DISRUPTION in a disrupted world” he will reflect on one of the toughest periods in the history of the advertising business and offer his thoughts on creativity and how brands should behave in the future.
